


Not Today

by sensorium



Series: there is no way to get to the future from here [1]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with a sort of hopeful ending, Cross-Posted on Tumblr, F/M, Gen, Hurt with barely any comfort, no beta if i die i die
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-08
Updated: 2020-01-08
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:34:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22174885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sensorium/pseuds/sensorium
Summary: “You’re in too deep this time.” Ladybug runs a hand over her face, voice shaky. “You’re not going to make it out of this one, Chat.”“Well,” he manages with a dry laugh. “We always knew it would happen, didn’t we? And let’s be honest, Bug, we both knew it would be me.”“Yes,” she sighs, eyes glistening with tears as she runs a hand over his hair. “But not today. Not like this. Never like this.”
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir & Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug
Series: there is no way to get to the future from here [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1619032
Comments: 5
Kudos: 120





	Not Today

**Author's Note:**

> Wrote this on a 10 hour plane ride from Japan to the USA that was super turbulent and I thought I was going to DIE.
> 
> This is angsty. It's hurt with only the teeniest tiniest bit of comfort. Sorry in advance for the pain!

Hawkmoth’s cane pierces Chat’s chest like a spear, and when he pulls it out it makes a wet, squelching _crunch_ sound, a sound no human body should ever make.

A gaping hole is left behind, in which blood and muscle and splintered bone can be seen, and Chat goes down, hard. He’s on the floor, bleeding, gasping for air, and he doesn’t get up, he _can’t_ , and Ladybug sees red.

This is it.

She throws her yo-yo and it lands unintentionally around Hawmoth’s neck. (That’s the excuse she gives when someone asks. But she knows her yo-yo never misses its target. She knew she wanted to hurt him as much as he had hurt Chat. More, even. She wanted him to suffer.) She pulls it taut. He falls to his knees. She pulls it tighter still. Tighter.

He falls on his back, flailing. Clawing at his neck. Face turning red and purple with lack of oxygen. She pulls it tighter. She isn’t Marinette. She isn’t Ladybug. She is someone else. She is something else. She is the last line of defense, she’s the only one standing between this man and the city of Paris, the world. She is going to kill this man if it’s the last thing she does. After five minutes without oxygen, brain cells start to die. She can kill him without spilling a drop of his blood, which is much _much_ kinder than he deserves. She pulls the yo-yo even tighter.

“Bug.” She hears Chat calling for her, and it sounds like he’s far away, and it brings her back to herself. She is Ladybug. As much as she wants to, she cannot kill this man. She snatches the brooch off of Hawkmoth. She pulls her yo-yo back.

It’s _Gabriel Agreste_. 

She reminds herself that she is Ladybug. She cannot kill this man. So, she punches him in the face with enough force to knock him out. 

She runs to Chat, pulls him up so he’s laying on her lap, calls for her lucky charm and casts the miraculous cure.

The miraculous cure doesn’t work.

Her stomach drops. Her heart crawls up and lodges itself in her throat. This is it. 

“You’re in too deep this time.” Ladybug runs a hand over her face, voice shaky. “You’re not going to make it out of this one, Chat.”

“Well,” he manages with a dry laugh. “We always knew it would happen, didn’t we? And let’s be honest, Bug, we both knew it would be me.”

“Yes,” she sighs, eyes glistening with tears as she runs a hand over his hair. “But not today. Not like this. Never like this.”

“Oh, Bug. I love you. I’m sorry I’ll be leaving you alone, but you know this isn’t your fault.” He puts his hand on her face from where he’s laying in her lap. It’s so cold all of a sudden, and he knows it’s just the blood loss, but it also feels like the inevitable, like death itself crawling up on him.

“It was always going to happen this way, but it wasn’t you. It was Hawkmoth. You didn’t do this to me. You didn’t kill me. You saved me. You saved me so many times, in so many ways, and you couldn’t this time, but it is _not_ your fault. It’s ok. You did your best, that's all I could ever ask of you. And there’s nowhere else I’d rather be than here. You know that.”

He doesn’t have the strength to hold his hand up anymore. It falls to his side as she holds him and cries. His miraculous is beeping, and they both know once the transformation falls, the magic protecting him will disappear, and he will die. 

“Bug. I’m not gonna lie to you. I’m - I’m scared. Tell me something good. Something true.”

“The best and truest thing I know is that I love you, Chaton. You are the best person in my life. My partner, my friend, my confidante, my rock. I love you so much. You are so loved. You will be missed. You will be mourned.”

He lets his eyes slip shut for the last time as he whispers, “I know. I know that now. Thank you.”

She kisses him on the forehead.

His miraculous beeps one final time. The transformation drops. She is holding Adrien Agreste’s dead body in her arms.

The scream that comes out of her reverberates through the entire city, amplified by the magic released by the death of a holder whilst wearing their miraculous. It’s a sound so profoundly human in its rage, its pain, its grief, it gives everyone who hears it chills.

She screams. She screams until her throat tears and she’s spitting blood, and then she keeps screaming. She screams until her vocal chords give up on her. She screams until she physically cannot anymore, and then she cries. It feels like it’s been hours, days, years, but she looks up and realizes it’s only been seconds. She’s in so much pain it felt like time had frozen around her.

The paramedics are waiting to take Adrien's body, to take him _away from her_ , and before she realizes what she’s doing she’s up and running down the street with him in her arms, her partner, her first love, her best friend on both sides of the mask, _Adrien_. 

There’s another ambulance at the other end of the street with more paramedics crowded around it, and she’s trapped, trying to figure out how to get out of there without harming Adrien’s body, but then a firefighter comes up to her.

It’s a firefighter she knows. It’s one she trusts. She freezes. He approaches her slowly with his arms out, and he takes Adrien from her. She’s holding herself so tight, her entire body feels like an elastic band about to snap, and the firefighter sees it. He reassures her. 

“We’ll take good care of him.”

The paramedics clustered around the ambulance rush in towards the firefighter with a stretcher, bags, cuffs, tubes, machines, so many things, things she couldn’t identify if she were paid to, and everyone is yelling something and there’s just so much blood.

How can one person have so much blood? She read somewhere that the average human body has more than 4 liters of blood in it, but she didn’t realize it was so much. Adrien looks so small, so pale, _lifeless_ , and as someone yells that they can’t find a pulse she's reminded that he is. Adrien Agreste - Chat Noir - is **dead**.

She collapses onto the cement and wails as best as her broken throat can manage. She barely manages to make a sound, just a wounded animalistic whine, and it hurts like hell, but she thinks that it’s fitting. It’s fitting that her body is hurting as much as her heart is right now. It’s only fair, especially now that Chat, Adrien, isn’t alive to feel anything anymore, and her hands are still wet with his blood.

Someone picks her up and puts her in the back of the ambulance Adrien is in. She immediately reaches for his hand, the one wearing the miraculous, which is now silver and cold and dimly she thinks, it’s just as dead as Adrien is. It digs into her hand because of how hard she’s holding his.

She’s still crying, still so distraught, still holding Adrien’s hand so tight that her knuckles are white, and the beeping doesn’t register to her.

Her transformation drops. But the beeping continues.

In the next moment everyone is cheering, screaming, the ambulance is shaking with the force of the paramedics jumping in excitement. 

It’s the heart monitor.

_It’s the heart monitor._

Adrien’s hand twitches in hers.

He’s alive.

_He’s alive._

Her voice is wrecked and thick with blood and tears as she leans in close and whispers in his ear, “Not today.”

**Author's Note:**

> As of the date this was posted (01/08/2020) I'm not planning on a continuation for this. If you want to stay up to date on what I'm doing, and writing and posting, you can follow me on tumblr: [here](https://miraculousbelladonna.tumblr.com/)


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